Two women killed in separate incidents in city

Mary Gail Hare and Justin Fenton, The Baltimore Sun

Two women died in separate shootings Thursday in Baltimore.

The killings pushed the total of homicides for the year to 165, 11 more than at the same point last year and making it unlikely the city can improve upon last year's 35-year low of 196. Twenty-five people have been killed this month, nearly one per day.

A 19-year-old woman, identified Friday by police as Nana Mensah of Randallstown, was shot in the head while seated in a car parked in the Irvington neighborhood. City police are unsure whether she was targeted or the victim of random violence.

A preliminary investigation showed that Mensah was in the car's passenger seat when an unknown person fired a shot from somewhere in the 400 block of S. Augusta Ave. She was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where she was pronounced dead at 9:47 p.m.

Police are searching for a gray, two-door Honda with tinted windows and a Maryland license plate featuring the Chesapeake Bay.

About 7 p.m. Thursday, police found an unidentified woman shot at least once in the torso in Cherry Hill. The victim, who was found in the 200 block of Reedbird Ave., told police she had been shot by an unknown rider she had picked up in the neighborhood. The location is not far from the Southern District police station and Harbor Hospital.

Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said police believe the woman may have worked for a sedan service, though the shooting was not believed to be random. The victim, whom police were working to identify, died at 1 a.m. Friday, also at Shock Trauma, police said.

Anyone with information was asked to call homicide detectives at 410-396-2012.

The incidents mark three shootings of women in a 24-hour span in Baltimore. On Wednesday night, a woman and her 4-year-old child were shot in a domestic incident in Better Waverly, and police have arrested 25-year-old Eric Ford Sr., charging him with two counts of attempted first-degree murder.

The number of homicides last year, still among the most per capita in the nation, was the lowest seen here since 1977 and, when taking into account the significant population decline, the city's lowest homicide rate since 1988.